Vampirism

Vampirism Vampirism: Then and Now BY: Steven Crowe When asked about vampires, most people would refer to many popularly known traits. Most of these include an extremely old Nobleman with fangs, slicked back hair, a cape, blood reliance, and a Transylvanian accent. Other well known vampire facts include being destroyed by the sun, garlic, crosses, holy water, and a stake to the heart. Though well known, most of these are false and were created through Literature and Cinema, and share hardly any common traits with either the vampires of archaic folklore nor the real vampires of today. The vampire is a popular yet misunderstood entity from archaic folklore and into the modern culture of today. The initial origin of vampires is quite unclear and has varied widely. The vampire has appeared in the folklore of many different countries and various storytellers and writers have embellished some of the aspects of vampirism. “The vampire figure in folklore emerged as an answer to otherwise unsolvable problems within culture. The vampire was seen as the cause of certain unexplainable evils, accounted for the appearance of some extraordinary occurrences within the society, and was often cited as the end product of immoral behavior.” (Melton 504-505). The vampire, vampires, blood, real, vampirism, haarman, folklore, modern, culture, vii, strigoi, people, others, order, one, life, energy, being, referred, psychological, psychic, practice, nineteen, known, corpse, characteristics, archaic, the, within, ways, victims, vampyrealmanaccom, upon, today, though